


Pieces of a Whole

by MaeveBrennan



Category: OMORI (Video Game)
Genre: Forgiveness, Please help it's been twelve hours and I want to sleep, Post-Good Ending (OMORI), Post-good ending, probably too much dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28721448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBrennan/pseuds/MaeveBrennan
Summary: What happens after the good ending. How do Aubrey, Hero, and Kel handle what Sunny has to say to them? They each might have more insight than they know.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 152





	Pieces of a Whole

Sunny stood in the white room. This was not the comforting, familiar one he had grown used to for years, though. There was no low hum of a laptop, instead it was the _beep, beep, beep_ of machinery and monitors. There was no slow, steady breathing of a black cat, instead, the ragged breath of a boy about his age. Most notably, for the first time, those three weren't in the next room over playing cards in their pajamas. They were here. All together. He wasn't sure how much longer that would last, but isn't that why he chose to open the door for the first time in four years?  
His voice came out in a croak, it had been locked away in that stark space as long as he had.  
"I have to tell you something." It was harsh to get the first words out, he felt like he could have choked on them  
"Sunny!? Why are you out of bed!? You're-!" Aubrey started on a rant, stomping over to Sunny. As she approached, a calming hand on her shoulder turned her from concerned anger down to embarrassed relief.  
Hero smiled. "He just went through a lot, we should be nice. But she is right, we didn't think you'd be up for days yet. Come on, I'll help you back to your room, and you can tell us when you feel better. We can check out all of the flowers you were sent."  
Sunny kept looking down and away from Hero as the young man approached. The words weren't coming out easily. It was so hard just to say that much, harder to confess, even without his voice being so out of shape. Even in dreams he forgot how to speak right until the very end.  
But the remaining friend in the room caught on to the tear gathering in Sunny's remaining eye. Kel spoke up, "Hey! Sunny came all the way down here." He scratched the back of his head. "He must want to say something really important. We should listen to him." Kel drew near, a smile on his face. "Go on, Sunny! You can tell us anything!"  
Another period of silence passed. Then, the dam began to leak.  
"I have to tell you something." He repeated. "I... It's my fault Mari is dead."  
The room quieted, the light seemed a little colder. Tears kept building in Sunny's remaining eye, and stung behind his bandages. The room went blurry before shading itself in a dark blue. Hero wrapped him in a hug.  
"Sunny... it's not your fault. It's no one's fault that we didn't see what was happening to her! You don't have to blame yourself!"  
Now the dam broke fully. Tears freely streamed down the left side of his face, and Sunny pushed a little. "No... No! You don't understand! I killed her! I pushed her down the stairs!"  
Sunny's shouts made Hero back up, and the three friends all looked to him.  
"Sunny..? What do you-?" Hero's faltering words were cut off by Sunny's own.  
"It was-! It was the night of the recital! I still wasn't good enough to play with her, I was still missing too many notes, it felt like it was tearing us apart!" His hysterical shouts became more somber. "So I threw my violin down the stairs. Mari started shouting at me for it. She looked so angry... So I pushed her away. And she... And she-!" Finally, in a pitch, Sunny began fully bawling, barely managing to get out the words, "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry! I didn't mean to and she-!"  
Aubrey knelt down to where Sunny had fallen. Her eyes were tightly closed and she was shaking. "Go on. You can continue." She knew there had to be one more piece of the story. In between now and when she was found.  
Sunny nodded, his words bolstered by the hand gripping his shoulder. "Basil was there. He saw everything. All he would talk about is how Something must have killed Mari. Something behind me. It was all I could make out, afterwards. So to save me from Something, we did that to her, at the end. He was just trying to protect me from being alone the whole time." Sunny looked up again at all of them. "I'm sorry."  
Hero was the first to action. He put a hand on Sunny's head. "Thank you for telling us." He sniffled lightly and left the room, wiping his eyes.  
"Hero! Hero, wait!" Kel jumped to leave but then looked back to his friend, and reached down to help him up to his feet. "He'll come around, it wasn't your fault." He tried for a smile but couldn't fully manage one. "I'll come back for you. Aubrey, keep an eye on him!" He left in a flash.  
"Kel! You can't just run off like that! AUGH!" Aubrey huffed and stomped her foot. She then noticed Sunny beside her and shuffled her feet a little before reaching into her pocket and pulling out folded paper napkins, the kind that Gino's always gave too many of. "H-here. Take them. You're starting to bleed out of your right- Side." She walked away, but to Basil rather than out the door. Sunny held one napkin to his bandages and it came away with a pink tear. Another napkin wiped his good eye, and let him see Aubrey once again. As well as Basil's face.  
He looked as though he was having a nightmare.  
Sunny's task here for now was done. It was probably for the best to leave the room.  
"Hey. What happened between you and Basil last night? There was blood everywhere, we almost thought we had lost you too. Kel and Hero had to fight him off of you."  
Sunny wiped his eye again and stepped to a point across the bed from the pink-haired girl. Not just to be near, but so his soft voice would carry over. "I... I think he's been going through the same thing as me. Ever since that day I kept having nightmares. They didn't stop when I woke up, either. I would see Something behind me, or in the mirror, or people who weren't there anymore. Everywhere, all the time. I almost thought Kel was a monster, like when Mari knocked at the door."  
"Mari knocked on your door?"  
"I know she didn't. But it felt so real... Basil must have been the same way. That's why he was screaming at the lake. He's been in a living nightmare, and when he learned I would be leaving and he would be alone again, he must have snapped. He said Something was behind me again, and in the fight it sounded like he was trying to kill Something, not me." Sunny matched his eye to Aubrey's. Did she change her eye color somehow? He didn't remember them being that teal color.  
"Something behind you. That kind of sounds like Basil, doesn't it? He never blames any of us for anything. Even when he should." Sunny felt the words stab into his heart, yet Aubrey continued. "I spent four years thinking that she just left me. I dyed my hair so that she would stay, I went to church just to try to hear her voice. Now that I know what happened..."  
Sunny braced himself.  
"I feel like more of an idiot." Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she grit her teeth in anger. "Instead of taking care of the things she actually cared about or noticing what was happening, I thought everyone just left me. You, everyone, was suffering while I was putting nails in my bat." She walked around the bed, and with that same pained, angry face, lashed out. Grabbing Sunny roughly by the arms, and into a tight hug. "I'm sorry I left you all alone for so long. I promise you I won't, ever again!"  
"Aubrey?" Sunny stood, completely confused. "But I took Mari from you. I hurt you."  
The girl lightly broke the hug and looked back down to Basil, gathering her thoughts. "If it wasn't for you and Hero, you might have both drowned, and it would have been my fault. I was just a few minutes from being exactly where you were, and the only reason I'm not is because of chance. If you three could tell me that was an accident, then I'd be a real hypocrite if I didn't do the same thing. Especially to someone that looks like they paid a lot, already." She tapped her right eye.   
"Th-thank you, Aubrey. Really." Sunny felt a tiny piece of his heart lighten.  
"Ah, but I don't totally forgive you yet! You have to make it up to me for... For getting blood on my favorite jacket."  
Sunny looked to Aubrey for blood but found none. Aubrey noticed and continued, as if she knew the question in his mind.  
"I got a new jacket from home. I like the style, okay?" She huffed and elbowed him very lightly. "So if y-you want me to forgive you, y-you have to stay in touch, okay? You can't just run away again. Got it?"  
"I do."  
The pair looked over Basil awhile longer before Aubrey finally sighed loudly. "Let's go find Kel. He probably got lost or something."  
"Maybe I should stay behind."  
"What did I just say? You're not just gonna disappear on me again, come on!" She grabbed his arm and they marched out the door.  
  
***

Kel had run through nearly every hallway looking for his brother. There was simply no way that the college student had somehow run faster or farther than him. Sure Hero was ahead of him in, well, most fields if Kel was being honest with himself, but this was one area he was at least somewhat confident in. He had done nearly a full lap now, and was at the room Sunny had been put in. Kel shook his head as he read the patient name. The doctors told them all that they should leave him alone, and he just walked himself to where they were, and said all of that. How did Sunny even find Basil's room? How long was he wandering around in that state?  
How much of this was his fault? Even Hero and Aubrey's words couldn't get through to Basil that last night, but what if he had actually tried? Could he have prevented the fight? What if he had tried to understand Aubrey? Maybe they wouldn't have all fought. What if he hadn't dragged Sunny and Basil out into so much discomfort, or if he had listened more, or maybe if he hadn't been so adamant about working towards that violin? With no sign of his brother around and no staff in the hall, Kel succumbed to his own racing thoughts at long last.  
He wasn't like Hero. Hero always seemed right. He knew the right words to say, he knew how to cook, he had good grades, all of it. And Kel was just... Kel. That made his current goal all the more urgent. Hero, of all people, was the first to leave the room.   
It was because of Sunny. The boy that Kel had used daydream would be his own brother one day, once Hero and Mari got married. Kel shifted his weight and heard a clatter on the floor. Hector had fallen out of his pocket.  
He used to talk to Hector constantly. Another childhood dream, like becoming family with Mari and Sunny. He held it in hand, then made sure he was really alone.  
"Hey, Hector." Kel flushed red slightly at talking to a rock.  
Silence.  
"It's been awhile, hasn't it?"  
Silence.  
"What am I doing? I'm acting as crazy as Basil." Kel clipped his tongue in, suddenly reminded of his friend, babbling in hysterics over Sunny's body. He looked back down to the rock. "That was mean of me, wasn't it? Sorry."  
Silence.  
"I wish I was better at keeping my mouth shut sometimes. I said that it wasn't his fault without even thinking."  
Silence.  
"Why did I say that at all?"  
Silence.  
"I know! I know I said we'd all be there for each other from now on, but I didn't think it would end up like this. Hero was the first to leave, and he said those same words! If he can't forgive Sunny then how am I supposed to!?" Kel noticed he was shouting and standing. He looked around and put the rock back into his pocket, turning and leaning on the wall.  
"Hero... Always helped me. He always came for me and helped me make up with Aubrey and the others. Now it's my turn and it feels like I'm going to mess it all up. Like always. No matter how hard I try." He looked out of a nearby window, to the hospital complex, and the cars rolling down the street. Sunny's confession replayed through his mind. All throughout, his mind kept revisiting a certain detail.  
Kel often got along well with Sunny, they were both younger siblings to amazing people, so much so that sometimes they seem to go unnoticed. The fight before the accident wasn't just being inadequate that the violin, not to Kel. It was being passed up for praise, it was losing time with the people he loved, it was something that raised Mari up so much higher than Sunny could reach. Kel looked up to the window again. And saw Sunny staring back.  
Kel leapt straight into the air and rallied himself, whipping around to find Aubrey and Sunny giving him a confused look. "What are you two doing, sneaking up on people!?"  
"We're looking for you!" Aubrey growled out.  
"Oh? You both came to look for me?"  
"We did." It wasn't Aubrey, but Sunny who responded.  
Kel looked to his friend. He was so thin and pale now. He looked back into the reflection in the window, and back again into his friend's one eye. That's right. His friend who lost everything. Who could have lost more if Kel had continued his crusade against Aubrey. He placed one hand on Sunny's head. "I'm alright, I think. Thanks for dragging Aubrey to come look for me! If you couldn't find me, I bet her fist could!" Kel let out a laugh amidst Aubrey's glares. The first he had been able to all day. "If you found me then maybe we can all find Hero together. What do you think, Sunny? Can you help me find him?"  
"Are you sure you want me along?"  
"Friends should stick together, after all."  
Kel joined the party, and the three, very carefully to avoid too much attention from the staff, began to search. Sunny felt his heart get a little lighter.  
  
***

Hero didn't know where he was going. Tears blurred his vision and the halls and stairs all blended together. All he knew is that with the watery sight and pain in his chest, he felt like he was drowning. He had spent the last four years learning how to cope with a suicide, building himself back up. Now the floor had fallen out from under him. All the work he had put into coping seemed so useless now. Mari died in a horrible accident. She hadn't killed herself. She hadn't killed herself.  
The better and the worse rang in his ears. He needed to get to the surface. Up the stairs. Up as high as they would go. Up to the roof and into the light. Now that he was out here, he let himself fully break down. He thought of Sunny as a little brother for years. It must have taken every bit of strength he had just to walk down the halls, then he found more besides to speak properly, then even more to tell them all the truth. He really did see how much effort it all took. But all the same, his heart hurt all over again.  
Hero sat down near the door, unable to stand any longer. He let himself silently weep, wondering how he could escape the ocean.  
"Hey, good-looking, there isn't anything cooking up here!" A woman's voice called out to him. Hero jolted in place and wiped his eyes. Standing above him was a doctor with long, long black hair and squarish glasses. She gave a smart grin and tapped a clipboard to her shoulder.  
"Oh. Oh I'm sorry, I'll go back downstairs. I just needed some air." He sniffled and made to stand, but felt her clipboard tamp him back down into a sitting position.  
"Relax, I'm not gonna rat you out. You look awful. Like you need some sleep."  
"It's been a long week... I guess." Hero tried to cover for himself more.  
The doctor sat alongside him. "Tell me about it." She gave him an inviting smile.  
"Oh no, I couldn't do that."  
"You can tell me, I swear I won't tell anyone, doctor-patient confidentiality!"  
"I don't think that's how it works..."  
"Sure it's how it works! What do you know?" The doctor faked a pout.  
"Well I'm studying to be a doctor, so..."  
"You are? I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years."  
"What do I look like, then?"  
"Mmmm, a chef! You look like a person that likes to see people eat."  
Hero's heart stopped cold. "Did you just say, 'chef'?"  
"It's just a wild guess. Maybe I'm a little hungry though, I haven't eaten in awhile now."  
Hero just looked down. "My... Someone very special to me used to push me to be a chef. She always said she wanted to eat my cooking."  
"And that's why you're up here, isn't it?" The doctor's tones and face became warm, ready to accept grief. "Something happened to her?"  
Hero felt himself tear up again. He didn't want to say it to a random stranger, but it felt like the words would fly out of him all the same. "She's dead. She died four years ago."  
"Oh no... I'm sorry."  
"Recently I learned that it wasn't a-" Hero choked up a little. "I learned how she died. I know it was all an accident but I feel so unprepared! Like my last four years have been built on a lie!"  
The doctor listened to him sob awhile before motioning to him. "Did they help you cope with it, though?"  
"I mean, they did."  
"Then I think they were worth it. It's not really starting over again, because you've already made mistakes the first time, and learned from them, I hope."  
"Yeah..." Hero took a breath. "I locked myself in my room for almost a year. I only got out of it after I realized I had gotten into a fight with my own brother. I hit him and our parents came in and ran to me, and left him all alone. I think going to him was my first step out of my own room." Hero smiled in a melancholy way. Why was he spilling his heart out to a random woman on the roof of a hospital?  
"Fights between sibling happen like that. I would know, I have my own sibling. I'm glad you had the chance to chase him, and he didn't run off somewhere and get lost. While emotions were running high."  
"The chance to chase him... Yeah. Yeah I think I might understand more what you mean."  
"Good. Not everyone has that same opportunity, you know? Sometimes they lead to things you can't always take back." She smiled sadly and tapped her thigh a few times. "Alright stud muffin, I could sit here and talk to you forever, but I think my time is up for now." She stood and brushed off her lab coat, before giving a wink to Hero. "But if you're ever around you should come and say hello, I promise I'll smile at all your dumb jokes." The woman left, dark hair fluttering lightly behind her until she closed the door. Hero almost wanted to follow, but couldn't quite put strength into his legs. Instead sitting in his place, watching the clouds go by.  
The door startled him as it slammed open.   
"Hey Hero! Where are you!?"  
It was Kel's voice. How long had he been watching the clouds? He rubbed his eyes and stood.  
"Hero? You up here?" Aubrey's voice now. Hero stepped around the corner and saw his friends there. Aubrey and Kel.  
And Sunny.  
The air grew tense. Hero took a few large steps forward. Towards Sunny. Towards his quiet old friend. Towards the boy he promised himself to love like a brother, standing there in the most hurt he's ever allowed himself to feel. He took Sunny into his arms and hugged him as tightly as he dared to.   
"I promise I'll be there for you, Sunny. You always have a home with us."   
He took the last things Mari left behind into his arms, his friends. Sunny felt the pressure squeezing his heart let up. Enough to cry again. This time for the people surrounding him.

***

The four friends stood in a rough semicircle around Basil's bed.  
"Well now what do we do?" Kel said, one hand on his head.  
"I think... we need to let Sunny decide." Hero answered, looking over to the boy who was at the foot of the bed.  
Sunny answered with a questioning glance. It seemed as though he was asking why it fell to him.  
"Hero's right. He took your eye out. There's no telling what he'll be like when he wakes up either." Aubrey stated.  
"Come on guys, this is Basil we're talking about! He wouldn't hurt a fly if it punched him in the nose!" Kel said. "Something must've been really, really wrong, it's not like him at all."  
"Wouldn't hurt a fly? Then why are he and Sunny here?" She motioned to the hospital around them.  
Hero put up a calming hand. "Stop, you two. This is why Sunny should be the one to decide. What do you think, Sunny?"  
Sunny was quietly staring at Basil. "I feel like all this time, I've been running away from him, and trying to save him this whole time."  
"Trying to save him? Because you think you know what he's going through?" Aubrey asked.  
Kel perked up. "Do you really, Sunny? That's great then! You can tell us how this happened!"  
"I wouldn't be so happy about that, Kel." Hero looked slightly embarrassed.  
"Sometimes, to my eyes-" Sunny halted, he would have to start changing his vocabulary now, wouldn't he? "Sometimes I would see things that weren't there. Spiders crawling all over the house. Or people who couldn't really be there. Or like in the lake, I could swear tendrils were pulling me down to drown me. Sometimes even, I would... I would hear someone playing the piano downstairs." He exchanged a meaningful glance with Hero. "Basil kept talking about Something being all around him, that there was no way out of all of it. He looked so scared all the time."  
"Sunny, that's awful. Has this really been going on since...?" Hero asked. Aubrey nodded her assent, having heard earlier. "Ah, I see. I had no idea..." He finished his thought.  
"So that's why you kept walking around aimlessly? Is that why you almost ran into the street yesterday?" Kel had a concerned look on his face.  
"I thought I saw Basil's grandmother."  
"Wow... How could you have? Since she- Oh." Kel seemed to understand what Sunny meant by seeing things.  
Sunny placed one hand on the foot of the bed.   
"I've been running away for so long. I know things can't be exactly like they used to be... But I want to go together. With everyone. If it's possible. I don't want any of us to be alone again, I mean."  
"We already split up once. If you can forgive Basil, then I can at least try!" Kel said with his usual carefree grin.  
"Honestly, all I want is for you two to be okay. Even after what you told us all, when I think that we could have lost you, it makes me sick." Aubrey tried her best to give a smile. It had clearly been a long time since she had last properly tried.  
"It's not going to be easy. It's going to take a lot of work to get through it. But if it's us..." Hero finally gave a heartwarming smile. "Then we can do it. Let's all get through this accident, together."  
"Together!" Kel shouted. The overshadowed child who now had a chance to be the respected brother to his baby sister.  
"Together." Aubrey agreed. The angry and hurt girl who almost lost her chance to talk to her friends again.  
"Together." Hero sniffled out. The older brother who lashed out at the younger in a fit of anger, but had the chance to go to him and make amends before it was too late.  
"Together." Sunny whispered.  
  
***  
  
On the bed, the was a groan and a stir. Basil woke up, hurting all over. His head was ringing, and there again were the jagged tendrils of Something all around him. He didn't even have the strength to move. It was all he could do to look down at the foot of the bed. To Sunny, standing there impassively, Something over his shoulder. One eye missing. He had done that. He had done that to his best friend.  
Then Sunny smiled. Light came back into his eye and tears gathered. The most genuine smile of someone happy that their friend woke up.  
There wasn't Something behind him.  
There wasn't Something around him.  
Everything is going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> This game really took up so much of my mind! I love how there are just the right amount of ambiguities that we get get to answer and explore, and especially share with everyone.
> 
> I thought about the true ending and what happened afterwards a lot. I hoped Sunny would keep his friends and continue to work with them to continue getting better. I guessed his smile at the end means things went well, but I kept thinking over how each of them would find forgiveness.
> 
> Then I had a thought. Kel, Aubrey, and Hero all have personal experiences that all relate to the fight between Mari and Sunny. Kel always seemed to struggle with not being good enough, not being the favorite, like Sunny felt with the violin and living up to Mari's skill. Hero had the fight with his brother, exploding at him after a year of repressed emotion, like the confrontation that led to Mari's death. Aubrey has to deal with the knowledge that her mistake could have killed Sunny and Basil both, so she has a glimpse into what Sunny has felt for four years, and also how important forgiveness is to recovery.  
> The emotions before the fight, the fight itself, and the aftermath, each friend has one piece of the whole picture. Together they can find real forgiveness and move on, for both Sunny and Basil. Or, that's the kind of story I thought I'd like to write.
> 
> Did I give Hero a dream version of Mari as a doctor to help him? Maybe. Is it just a doctor who can't help flirting as a pastime? Probably. Each of them needs someone to talk to. Aubrey would probably want to talk to Sunny the most, while Kel never seems to let himself feel sad in front of others. Him being forced to slow down and introspect seems a bit mean, but I thought it might help him more than smiling it off with someone, like with Cris and how he feels about basketball.
> 
> Part of me wants to keep writing and find out what happens a year later, or where they all end up. I guess that more than anything says how obsessed I got over this game.


End file.
